By Daniel Wiessner

Nov 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday said Home Depot did not violate the legal rights of workers at a Minnesota store when it barred them from writing "BLM" on their uniforms in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board and said Home Depot was justified in implementing the policy in 2020 after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by police a few miles away from the store and workers there had complained about racial tension.

"This was a business decision made to preserve the store’s apolitical face to customers and safeguard employee safety in a risk-filled environment," Circuit Judge James Loken wrote. "The Board majority did not properly balance the competing interests and give weight to all of the relevant factors which are involved."

Home Depot did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NLRB's press office is closed and not responding to inquiries during the government shutdown.

Floyd's murder set off nationwide protests and calls to defund and reform police departments, organized under the Black Lives Matter banner. And many companies grappled with workforces eager to show support for the movement, sometimes landing them in legal trouble.

An NLRB administrative judge in 2023 ruled that subsidiaries of grocery store operator Kroger violated federal labor law by barring workers from wearing Black Lives Matter buttons. But later that year, a different judge dismissed similar claims against Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

Last year, the Boston-based 1st Circuit revived a retaliation lawsuit by a Whole Foods worker who was fired from a Massachusetts store after refusing to remove a Black Lives Matter facemask. The court had already tossed out proposed class action claims that Whole Foods' policies amounted to race discrimination.

In Thursday's case, workers at the Home Depot store in New Brighton, a Minneapolis suburb, began writing "BLM" on their orange aprons after Floyd's death.

In 2021, a Hispanic employee who had previously complained about racial harassment was told not to return to work with the altered apron and quit in response, and other workers were told to remove "BLM" from their aprons, according to filings in the case.

The worker filed a complaint with the NLRB. The board last year found that the employees who altered their aprons were engaged in conduct protected by federal labor law, because their support for Black Lives Matter was tied to their complaints about racist conduct by coworkers.

Home Depot appealed and the 8th Circuit on Thursday reversed, saying the conduct was not protected because it had, at best, an indirect relationship to any issues specific to the store and its workers.

"The BLM message relates to the workplace only in the sense that workplaces are part of society," wrote Loken, an appointee of Republican former President George H.W. Bush.

The panel included Circuit Judges Ralph Erickson and Jonathan Kobes, who are appointees of Republican President Donald Trump.

The case is Home Depot USA Inc v. NLRB, 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-1406.

For Home Depot: Roman Martinez of Latham & Watkins

For the NLRB: Joel Heller

Read more:

Home Depot ban on worker's Black Lives Matter apron was illegal, US agency rules

Whole Foods workers lose appeal over 'Black Lives Matter' masks

Whole Foods beats NLRB case over ban on Black Lives Matter apparel

Court revives Whole Foods worker's lawsuit over 'Black Lives Matter' masks

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York)